UNPLUGGED: Are you awake yet?
by Rhe Ampson
Summary: Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone's story is the same. There is a hacker. There is a ship. There is a choice. Now there are three ships and many choices. But who will survive and who will fall. The question must be asked. Are you awake yet?


UNPLUGGED: Are you Awake yet?  
  
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Matrix, or Zion or any of the places, ships, characters from the films which are named here. The above is copyright to Warner Bros. and the Wachowski Brothers. The characters used are from UNPLUGGED ONLINE and are not mine. The Khaos, Juusan, Prospero, Track and Sans are my babies so let them be.  
  
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L.A.P.D Headquarters.  
  
The room was dark and filled with a grimy haze from old files on dusty shelves and the aging smoke of cigars. It was obvious that the room had not been cleaned in some time, or that whatever being inhabited it, had not even bothered to open a window in the months that had passed. Shafts of choked light fought their way through the gaps in the ever closed blinds, and cast dramatic shadows on the shoes of Officer Judith Mallory. The blonde haired woman tried not to breath too deeply as she addressed the large figure seated in the chair behind the desk, whose great mass was encircled with rings of smoke from a newly lit cigar. The mound of detective shifted its weight in the heaving leather seat.  
  
"Ok, so what 'ave we got?" He bellowed disturbing the vile fumes about him. Judith looked down quickly at her clipboard,  
  
"16 years old," She began, in her soft Australian accent, "Went missing from a juvenile centre over six months ago." She let out a stifled cough and continued "Wanted for theft, fraud, assault, joyriding and murder."  
  
The detective raised a thick grey eyebrow.  
  
"At 16? We're chasing a 16 year old?" He asked in disbelief. He moved uncomfortably, the dim light catching on the overly polished police badge pinned ostentatiously to his chest.  
  
"That's not all, take a look at this." She handed him the notes clipped to her board, taking great care not to brush past the mountains of dirty object littering the writing table. She watched as he squinted his piggy eyes and decided to ease him the pain of reading it himself, "Witness reports for New York, London, Barcelona, Sydney, even Tokyo." The silver haired man rubbed his eyes. This case had been keeping him awake for the past week and it was getting more bizarre. It had been keeping officer Mallory awake for the past month and she was used to it by now. The press had named it the 'Cheshire Cat Case' as the whole thing seemed to be in riddles. Records went missing. Evidence went missing. And now, more importantly, witnesses were going missing, if not driven to madness. Every time the law got close to something, the Cheshire Cat was always one step ahead and left without a trace. It was as if the feline fiend kept popping through portholes in other dimensions.  
  
"Kid gets around." The detective finally announced, his voice harsher and more pissed off than before.  
  
"No shit." Mallory whispered, but it was muffled by a plume of smoke as the fat man exhaled. She coughed again. "You find that unbelievable, wait till you hear this. You remember those fingerprints we found? Well the results came back from the lab." She paused, "Nothing."  
  
"Nothing?" The detective asked gruffly, leaning forward and wondering if he'd heard correctly. Mallory nodded.  
  
"Nothing." She replied bluntly, "According to the print records, this kid doesn't even exist."  
  
By now, any glimmer of hope into figuring the situation out was completely wiped from the detective's mind. It was as if someone had handed him a jigsaw with only half the pieces and all of those belonging to other puzzles. There was a brief moment of stifled silence and the overweight detective tried to think.  
  
"Didn't you say the kid went to a juvie camp or something?" He asked.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Well can't we get any information from them?" A small spark of optimism ignited in his tiny mind but was snuffed out immediately as he saw Judith shake her head in reply. The officer sighed.  
  
"I've tried. Apparently all the files went missing soon after the kid did. What I did find was that the offence she was originally sent down for wasn't committed by her."  
  
"Innocent?" The woman nodded. It took a couple of seconds for the true impact of what Officer Mallory had said, to affect the detective. His extra blubber froze as a sudden realisation hit him. "Wait! She? Her? This Cheshire Cat person is a girl!!" The shock of this information quite startled him and he was forced to take a long swig of the black coffee on his desk. He took a deep breath, "You're telling me that not only is the target a teenager, but a female teenager?" Mallory nodded. "God Almighty. Now I wasn't expecting that!" He sat back, rocking slightly. The chair threatened to break by emitting a long screech but that didn't stop him.  
  
The officer shrugged and ran her figures through her blonde hair.  
  
"Well, you send an innocent kid to a place like a detention camp, give it two to three weeks with real criminals and voila..."  
  
"A not so innocent kid." Grumbled the detective, puffing away like a chimney on his long, stinking cigar. 


End file.
